This San Francisco Giants-leaning baseball blog hits it "outta hereee!"

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

June Swoon: What's Behind the Giants' Slump?

Ever since the WashingtonNationals came into town on June 9, the San Francisco Giants have been spiraling downward.

The first game against the
Nationals came a day after the Giants finished off a sweep of the New York Mets. When San Francisco won
the second game of the series in come-from-behind, walk-off fashion, Giants broadcaster
Mike Krukow even said, “All they do is win.”

The sweep of the Mets gave
the Giants a 42-21 record. They had five fewer losses than any other National
League team and their division lead over the second-place Los Angeles Dodgers was a season-high 9.5 games.

But since the Nationals strolled
into town, it has seemed that all the Giants do is lose.

Counting the first game
against Washington (an ugly 9-2 drubbing at AT&T Park), the Giants have
gone 3-11 since sweeping the Mets. Their division lead, as of June 24th, is 3 games.

What’s behind the slump
in which the Giants have managed to win just 21.4% of their last 14 games after
winning an MLB-best 66.7% of their previous 64?

The pitching, power, and
steals have disappeared. Have a look for yourself:

Pitching

Games

RA/G

ERA

H/G

BB/G

K/G

Last 14

5.4

5.12

8.9

2.7

6.4

First 64

3.3

3.07

7.8

2.5

7.7

Offense

Games

RS/G

AVG

OBP

SLG

HR/G

SB/G

Last 14

3.4

.263

.312

.374

0.5

0.1

First 64

4.3

.248

.310

.406

1.1

0.5

San Francisco has allowed,
on average, 2.1 more runs per game than they did in their previous 64 games. They’ve
also scored 0.9 fewer runs.

The pitching, as you can see, is the
bigger issue. Strikeouts are down, walks and hits are up. Most of all, it's always going to hurt when you’re allowing 5.4 runs per
game.

On offense, the batting
averages and on-base percentages have actually gone up in the last 14 days. The noticeable drop has been in slugging percentage.

This is largely due to the
lack of home runs. The Giants hit 1.1 home runs per game in
their first 64 games, just 0.5 in their last 14.

Another noteworthy decline
has been the stolen bases. With Angel Pagan
nursing a nagging back injury, the Giants aren’t stealing as many bases. They
stole a base every two games in their first 64 games, but in their last 14 they’re only stealing about one base every ten.

Look for the pitching to
improve. It’s next to impossible that the Giants will continue to slump to anywhere near a 5.12
ERA.

Expect the Giants to find their way back to the mean--a 3.43 ERA and 4.2 runs scored per game.

Once that happens, the Giants
will go back to playing like one of the best teams in baseball.